Abstract
Seagrasses are known as engineering ecosystems that play important roles in coastal environments. Globally, seagrass areas have been declining, and many conservation projects have been carried out to prevent further decline. The goal of this work was to determine how successful conservation efforts have been in a seagrass meadow at Koh Tha Rai in the Nakhon Si Thammarat Province of southern Thailand in terms of meadow extent, coverage and organic carbon storage. A study was conducted in 2017 and compared to a previous study from 2006 to determine the effects of the various conservation efforts devoted to this area. The results show that the total seagrass area increased by 0.7 ha with a rate of increase of approximately 0.06 ha year−1. The total coverage of seagrass increased by approximately 3 times. The organic carbon in existing seagrass meadows (2006) was 53.35 Mg ha−1, while growth was 32.34 Mg ha−1 in the areas of new seagrass. Moreover, the total organic carbon storage in the sediment increased by 26.86 MgC from 2006 to 2017 (from 211.60 MgC to 235.46 MgC). In conclusion, this study demonstrated the importance of successful conservation efforts in terms of increasing seagrass meadow areas, seagrass coverage and carbon storage within the meadow.
About the authors
Ekkalak Rattanachot is a lecturer and researcher at Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit, Prince of Songkla University. He started to work on seagrass ecology in 2005 and earned his PhD in 2015 from Prince of Songkla University. His research interests are biogeochemistry in seagrass areas and the interaction between seagrasses and associated animals, especially lucinid bivalves and sea cucumbers.
Milica Stankovic is a recent PhD graduate from Prince of Songkla University. Her work is focused on organic carbon storage within the seagrass ecosystem and the response of seagrass meadows in climate change.
Supaphon Aongsara is a marine biologist working at Marine Ecology Unit, Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Center, Lower Gulf of Thailand. She graduated (BSc in Fisheries) from Maejo University, Thailand in 1998. As a government official, her work involves seagrass status assessment and a seagrass restoration project in the lower part of Thai Peninsular. She is an expert in marine fish classification.
Anchana Prathep leads the Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit at Prince of Songkla University, Thailand. Her work focuses on seaweed and seagrass ecology. She is recently trying to understand how much seaweeds and seagrasses contribute to carbon sequestration and storage as well as their ecosystem services, and how they respond to a changing world.
Acknowledgments
The research was partially financially supported by the Marine and Coastal Resources and Research Centre, the lower Gulf of Thailand (Songkhla), Department of Marine and Coastal Resources; and grant No. BDC-PG3-160017 to AP. Thanks go to the members of the Seaweed and Seagrass Research Unit, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, and Mr. Arun Nuichanai, Mr. Jaturong Yamsiri and Mr. Purinat Rungruang (Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Centre, the Lower Gulf of Thailand) for the field support. We are also grateful for the support from the SeagrassNet Monitoring Program, Prof. Frederick T. Short.
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/bot-2017-0110).
Article note:
This article is related to special issue Seagrass research in Southeast Asia, published in Botanica Marina 2018, vol. 61, issue 3.
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